Page 17 of A Highland Bride Disciplined (Scottish Daddies #2)

Scarlett tilted her head, eyes narrowing in mock appraisal. “Useful, aye. That tracks.”

He gave a soft huff, leaning forward to rest his forearms on the desk. “And what of ye, Lady Crawford? Do ye always demand the full story before ye’re satisfied?”

“Only when the subject is worth the effort. Do ye always try to deflect, or is it just with me?”

The air between them seemed to tighten, though neither moved. His eyes were dark and watchful, and locked on hers in a way that made her pulse skitter. She wanted to look away, to break the tension, but that felt too much like retreat.

He wouldn’t give her an answer. So, she pressed instead. “Tell me something real, then. Something nay one else kens.”

His gaze didn’t waver. “Nay one?”

“Aye. Nae even Tam.”

The corner of his mouth ticked upward in a slow, infuriating way. “That sounds dangerously like an invitation.”

Scarlett’s lips curved despite herself. “I’d call it a challenge.”

He leaned back again, considering her, the chair creaking faintly beneath him. “When I was sixteen, I tried to leave the Highlands altogether. Took me faither’s coin and a stallion, rode south. Thought I’d make a life in Edinburgh. A life that wasnae part of Crawford’s ruin.”

Scarlett blinked. She hadn’t expected his answer.

“What stopped ye?”

“Me faither drank the rest of the coin and gambled away the horse before the day I had planned to leave,” he said dryly.

“That must have been…” She searched for the word, then gave a wry smile. “Humbling.”

He smirked faintly. “That’s a word for it.”

Scarlett studied him for a long moment, wondering how much of this was shaped by memory, how much by the armor he wore now. “And yet here ye are, with yer ledgers and fine whiskey, running the clan like a general at war.”

“Because that’s what it was,” he said, his tone dipping lower. “A war to keep me people from starving. A war to reclaim what me faither squandered. And I won.”

The heat in his voice pulled at something deep in her, something she didn’t want to name. She forced herself to smirk. “Victory suits ye.”

“Does it now?”

“Aye. Though I imagine ye’d be insufferable about it if I told ye so directly.”

He made a sound halfway between a laugh and a scoff, but his eyes softened just a fraction. “Ye’re nae wrong.”

The room felt smaller somehow, the desk between them less a barrier and more a tether. Scarlett found herself tracing the edge of the armrest with her fingertips, restless, too aware of the way his gaze tracked the motion.

“Why the sudden curiosity?” he asked. “Last week ye’d have been content to tell me I was a brooding tyrant and leave it at that.”

She lifted one shoulder in a half-shrug. “Maybe I still think ye’re a brooding tyrant. But ye’re me brooding tyrant now, are ye nae?”

The words were out before she’d thought them through, and heat crept into her cheeks at the sound of them. His brows lifted slowly, and for a moment, she thought he might laugh outright.

Instead, his voice dropped, low and deliberate. “Aye, I am, wife .”

Something shivered through her chest at the way he said it. The warmth in his eyes wasn’t the kind that came from politeness or even approval. It was heavier, richer. Like the way whiskey clung to the tongue, lingering long after the swallow.

She swallowed against the sudden dryness in her throat, breaking his gaze just long enough to glance at the fire. “Careful, Kian. That almost sounded like affection.”

“Maybe ye’re just hungry, lass,” he said.

Scarlett’s heart thudded hard enough that she was sure he could hear it. She masked it with a faint, skeptical tilt of her head. “All business… aye?”

“Aye,” he said, rising from his chair and rounding the desk with measured steps. “But I ken that nae everything can be run like a ledger.”

She kept her eyes on him as he approached, willing herself not to shift back even as the air around her seemed to thicken.

“Some things,” he continued, stopping just before her chair, “daenae balance neatly. They’re… unpredictable.”

He was close enough now that she could smell him. An aroma of oak cask and smoke mixed with a hint of the crisp Highland wind still clinging to his clothes. Her pulse jumped.

“And ye daenae like unpredictable things,” she murmured.

His eyes caught the firelight as he leaned a fraction closer. “Nay. I daenae. And yet…”

The unfinished thought hung between them, warm and heavy. Scarlett’s fingers curled against the chair, resisting the urge to reach for him.

She tilted her head just enough to meet his gaze fully. “And yet?”

His eyes dipped briefly to her mouth before finding hers again. “And yet here I am.”

The space between them had narrowed to a dangerous sliver, every inch of it charged. She could feel the heat radiating from him, the steadiness of his stance at odds with the tension in his shoulders.

Her lips parted. Though she didn’t know whether she should try to respond or just close that last inch between them.

Neither did he, apparently.

Because instead of moving away or forward, they both stayed there, suspended, pulses hammering just fast enough to make the moment ache.

It was only when her breath grazed his jaw that she realized how badly she wanted to taste him.

But Kian was the first to shift, straightening just enough to let the cool air seep between them again.

Scarlett masked her disappointment with a slow, knowing smile. “Unpredictable indeed.”

His lips twitched like he wanted to say more, or do more, but instead, he simply stepped back toward the desk.

The moment was gone. But the tension remained like another person had been lingering in the room.

Scarlett sat very still, pulse still thrumming, as if moving might betray just how close she’d been to leaning in.

She was about to say something sharp, something to remind him that she wasn’t so easily cornered when an assaulting sound sliced through the moment.

Elise.

High and plaintive, it pierced the quiet of the study, bouncing off stone and wood until it reached down into Scarlett’s chest.

The crying didn’t ease. If anything, it grew more insistent, hitching between breaths. Scarlett could picture her little fists bunching the blanket, her mouth red and trembling.

Without a word, Scarlett rose from the chair.

Kian’s eyes flicked back to her, but he said nothing.

“She needs me,” Scarlett said, smoothing her skirts as she stepped around him.

“Where’s Effie or Morag?” It wasn’t a challenge exactly, but it landed like one. His brow ticked, but he didn’t block her path.

“I daenae ken. I’ve been in here with ye.”

The sound pulled at her the whole way to the door, her pace quickening with each cry. She could still feel the lingering weight of Kian’s gaze between her shoulder blades.

I’m comin’ Elise.

Scarlett strode into the hall, her slippers whispering against the flagstones, the echo of Elise’s cries guiding her like a thread. She wasn’t running from Kian.

Or was she?